Sharad Yadav speaks to JD(U) leaders at the state guest house on Sunday. Picture by Deepak Kumar

Patna, June 16: Minutes before the big split, JD(U) president Sharad Yadav engaged in a major discussion with party legislators on what they feel about the big decision. Their reply: Look before you leap.

JD(U) MLA Satish Kumar, who had defeated former chief minister Rabri Devi from Raghopur in 2010, told his party president: “Sir, I have got many phone calls from my constituency, where people are requesting me not to break the alliance with the BJP.”

It was around 1am when Sharad was holding a closed-door meeting with party legislators at the state guest house, adjacent to chief minister Nitish Kumar’s Aney Marg residence, to know their opinion on the party’s move to break the 17-year-old alliance with the BJP.

After Satish, about 50 legislators stood up one by one to share similar views with Sharad in their last-ditch bid to save the alliance that had virtually ended by then. But like Satish, all the MLAs who opposed the alliance break-up on the plea that people in their constituency didn’t favour it, expressed their support for the party’s decision.

“I told Sharadji that I have simply apprised him of the sentiments of people in my constituency on his inquiry. I firmly stand by the party’s decision,” Satish told The Telegraph, after emerging from the session. Another party MLA lamented that the sentiment of voters was not taken into consideration while breaking the alliance.

“Our leadership is severing ties with the BJP because the latter was hell-bent on projecting as prime minister someone who is not acceptable to our party. I support our party’s move. But I am afraid that my voters might not vote for me next time,” the MLA feared.

The Telegraph spoke to several other MLAs who, in private, sounded unhappy at the alliance coming undone but sloganeered “Nitish Kumar zindabad” in public.

Sources also said that a few MLAs strongly supported the party’s decision to break ranks with the BJP. “One of our colleagues said he would be more comfortable in the event of a break-up. But then, he represents a Muslim-dominated seat in north Bihar,” an MLA said.

Anxiety was writ large on the faces of several MLAs when they came out from the meeting. They were, probably, aware that the party had already decided to snap ties with the BJP and Sharad was just carrying out the “formality” of consulting them before Nitish Kumar visited Governor D.Y. Patil and handed him the letter declaring snapping of ties with the BJP.

While announcing the split later, with Nitish and other senior party leaders at 1 Aney Marg, Sharad, however, told the reporters that the party had decided to walk out of the NDA after taking into confidence all the legislators.

“It is our party’s collective decision. The BJP, by projecting someone known to strike fear in the hearts and minds of minorities, on the national centrestage, has deviated from the national agenda of the National Democratic Alliance, leaving little scope for the JD(U) to continue with it,” Sharad said.